Brittany – The Dual Dog

BY DIANA KUBITZ, AMERICAN BRITTANY CLUB JEC

When you look at a Brittany, what do you see? Different people see different things. Some notice how athletic they look going around the show ring. Others might see a bird dog who avidly seeks game and points it. One person might see a family dog that is wonderful with children and other pets. To some they see a versatile breed that is eager and willing to do all of the above and whatever their owner can imagine for them: Dock diving, agility, rally, barn hunts, therapy dogs…the list is endless!

What do the Judges Education Committee see when they see a Brittany? All of the above and so much more! We see a breed whose parent club’s mission statement says it will be “forever a dual dog.” What does that mean ex- actly? It means that we are a dedicated group of like-minded individuals that breed, compete and love the Brittany, and yet there is more…

A dual champion is an individual that has completed the re- quired elements to earn a show title and the required elements in field trials to earn a field title, hence the AKC designation of DC. Now it starts getting harder. In the show, you don’t compete against champions until you are a champion. In the field, you compete against everyone, all the titles of the alphabet: FC, AFC, NFC, NAC, NGDFC and NAGDC. So, Susie who is a two-year-old bitch running in an Open Gun Dog Stake can be competing with national champions. Competition gets really tough! You finally get those last 3 points and you have a field champion, who was already a show champion! Now you do your happy dance because your dog is a DUAL CHAMPION!

The number of Brittany Dual Champions has increased steadily throughout the years and we now have 647 at last count taken from the ABC webpage on Duals. 647 and as I type this the num- ber is probably increasing. We have more Dual Champions than all the other sporting breeds combined. WHY? What makes them so special?

Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=123154

Posted by Alex on Apr 19 2017. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.